Amazon launches a clothing store full of algorithms

(San Francisco) Amazon to open a high-tech clothing store in Los Angeles with technology used in its logistics centers to combine the benefits of online and in-person shopping, despite accusations of abuse of dominance against it .

“Customers will be able to shop from the fitting room,” promises the Seattle group in a statement released Thursday, announcing the inauguration of the new brand, called Amazon Style, for “later this year”, in a California city shopping center.

“Amazon Style is designed around personalization,” the statement said. Consumers will be able to scan the clothes they like, and the algorithms will “make personalized recommendations in real time”.

The idea is to combine the benefits of shopping online and in person. In the cabins, a touch screen will allow customers to select different models and sizes, which will be brought to them “in a few minutes” by the sales staff, thanks to the “sophisticated technologies and processes” already used in the group’s warehouses.

The company boasts of being able to provide many more choices than traditional stores, in a less crowded space. For example, it will be possible to order online – where there are millions of items – and try on the spot.

Like Apple, Meta (Facebook) and Google, Amazon is criticized for having accumulated too much power in the markets it dominates. The competition authorities accuse him in particular of being judge and jury on his platform, where he markets his own products in addition to those of other brands.

But that does not discourage the company, which regularly highlights the jobs created and the success of certain SMEs on Amazon.com.

Amazon opened its first brick-and-mortar store six years ago, a bookstore, the first industry the company disrupted with its online retail platform. He has since launched different brands, with varying degrees of automation, from food to electronics. And he bought the organic supermarket chain Whole Foods in 2017.